Music Trade Review

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REVIEW
THE
flUJIC TIRADE
VOL. LXIX. No. 7
Published Every Saturday by Edward Lyman BUI, Inc., at 373 4th Ave., New York.
Aug. 16, 1919
Single Copies 10 Cents
$2.00 l'er Year
The Necessity for Technical Education
W
HEN a question has become actually important, when it has assumed a position of essential signifi-
cance to a movement, it usually thrusts itself upon the attention of all concerned in a manner too
distinct to be mistaken. The piano trade is extremely conservative. Conservatism is an amiable
virtue, but it may be overdone. In respect of one very large question which is now thrusting itself
forward in a manner positively unpleasant the trade is displaying a conservatism which may be termed almost
too excessive.
That question is the question of recruiting skilled manpower for the carrying on of our manufacturing
during the years immediately before us.
It is a question which will not down, which obstinately thrusts itself forward as often as we push it back,
and which persistently repeats its demand to be heard.
Call it the question of "vocational training" if you like. Say it is the matter of "technical education."
But whatever you call it it comes to this: "How are we to obtain skilled men to do the skilled work of our
piano and player factories?" This is not an unimportant matter, not a subject for small talk. It is a matter
which holds within itself the destiny of this industry. We had better begin to think a little about it.
Factories do not make piano men. Factories can teach only a fraction of a single branch of piano making.
A man may learn to shank hammers; but he will not learn to be an all-round action finisher. He may learn to
match veneer; but he will not become an all-round cabinet maker.
Does some one say that modern methods eliminate the necessity for all-round artisans? Certainly, at the
factory bench, the division of labor makes for advantage. But what about the direction of labor ? We laugh
at the apostles of the Soviet who talk about the dictatorship of the proletariat. As Chesterton says, we might
as well talk about the omnipotence of omnibus conductors. But what are we doing to show that we believe in
skilled, adequate, educated direction of labor?
The future of the piano business imperatively demands that we train up a race of skilled piano makers.
The most enlightened manufacturers are perceiving this. A committee on vocational training has been ap-
pointed by the National Association of Piano Manufacturers and at present is organizing for the study of this
question. But it finds apathy and indifference, mainly among those who will be its greatest beneficiaries.
That committee should be supported. It has to answer many questions, such as: Is the time ripe for
establishing a real technical school for the whole trade? Where shall it be? What shall it teach? How shall
it be supported? What will it cost? Shall a system of part-time instruction of apprentices be opened up, in the
factories, taking boys and educating them on the shop time, as is done already here to some extent by private
enterprise? Shall any one of the systems of vocational training, or technical education, tried here or there,
be adopted; and which one?
These are questions which must be settled, for the man-power problem has become not only serious but
threatening. To de-technicize the piano industry and try to reduce it to an automatic-machine basis will kill it.
Yet that is the alternative to technical education.
The skilled workman is a factor in the piano industry which cannot be eliminated. No matter how purely
mechanical the process of building musical instruments may become, the human element is largely responsible
for the degree of perfection which the finished product will possess. If the pianos of the future are
to measure up even to the present standard of quality, there must be provided some system for assuring the
industry of an adequate supply of skilled workers who will build the pianos of the future. The question which
confronts us is as to how these future skilled workmen are to be assured.
Let us settle this question before it definitely settles us.